Yes, teachers do want to fix education

Published 5:54 pm, Friday, January 31, 2014

Photo: Austin American-Statesman File Photo

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Joseph Arce of San Antonio, whose mother is a teacher, carries a purposely misspelled poster during an American Federation of Teachers rally at the State Capitol in 2011. Some ideas to fix education: Pay teachers likes professionals, go beyond standardized tests, and merit pay. less

Joseph Arce of San Antonio, whose mother is a teacher, carries a purposely misspelled poster during an American Federation of Teachers rally at the State Capitol in 2011. Some ideas to fix education: Pay ... more

Photo: Austin American-Statesman File Photo

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Randi Wein- garten of the American Federation of Teachers points to the economy's role.

Randi Wein- garten of the American Federation of Teachers points to the economy's role.

Photo: AP

Yes, teachers do want to fix education

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SAN ANTONIO — Here's the stereotype: Teachers and those who represent them have tin ears when it comes to teacher quality and training. Teachers, you see, are mostly interested in funding candidates — for school boards on up — who will protect their outrageous perks and their inherent right to do their jobs badly without consequence.

But even a short talk with the woman who is the face and voice of teachers nationally will disabuse you of this stereotype.

So, she adds, let's figure out a method of accountability that goes beyond a “fixation” on testing and “merit” pay that, untethered from base pay, offers little incentive for improvement.

Bad teacher training? This happens, too. So, look to countries such as Finland, she says, which has seven schools of education rather than the multitudes here — some very good and, unfortunately, many not so good. Align teacher education with what it really takes to be effective teachers.

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Want better teachers? How about, she asks, investing in teachers as we do in physicians? See merit pay and base pay above.

She didn't mention it, but I will. Powerful teacher unions blocking needed education reform? They don't even have collective bargaining in Texas and the state still posts among the sorriest educational results in the country.

Says Weingarten, children should emerge to adulthood with three attributes: the ability to develop and sustain trusting relationships; critical thinking and problem-solving skills; and persistence and grit.

“Kids of means have (family) support systems for soft landings,” she notes. Without such support, kids often have only two others in their corners — a teacher or a guidance counselor.

Another way of saying that poverty matters. Education done right provides the ability to compete, but, in and of itself, doesn't create jobs.

“You need an economy that grows good jobs,” Weingarten says. We don't have enough of that in Texas.

Weingarten received The Defender of the Dream Award at an AFL-CIO conference in San Antonio recently, coinciding with events celebrating the achievements of Martin Luther King Jr. , whose march on Washington more than 50 years ago was, it's often forgotten, also about jobs.

Right, as the scolders point out, today's poor have something of a safety net (under constant attack, by the way) cell phones, refrigerators and cable television, as if to say, “See, they're not really poor.”

But those first paved roads didn't mean the poor were less poor because they could get to their meager-paying jobs quicker and weren't less poor because they could eat their gruel under something other than candlelight.

Accessible technology should not prompt us to ignore income inequality or poverty's role in education and beyond. Failure to improve the plight of the poor amounts to a “value statement,” says Weingarten.

Yup. Not a good one.

So, here's what I've been hearing from a lot of candidates and others lately on education. We shouldn't “just throw money at the problem” — another way of failing to fully acknowledge the role of Texas funding in school failure.

Many also argue for “choice.” Question: If that means funds diverted from schools, doesn't that exacerbate matters? And if these funds are available separately, why not use them for the underfunded schools most students will attend?

No; school failure must be about something else. Oh, I don't know; fat-cat teachers with three-month vacations and lazy students?